Never trust an island that boasts "the friendly island" on its license plate. Instead, meet the people and let them be a testament to the friendliness of their island.

Earlier this week, while on Dominica, we experienced friendliness at its best. We had arrived mid afternoon and hooked up for the evening with our friends Barry and Allison and their children, Kayla and Quinn, from Solitaire. Having already spent a week on the island, they gave us the run down on provisioning, tours and boat boys. As you arrive in Portsmouth, the second largest town on the island, you are greeted by River Guides in small fishing-type boats, who are government sanctioned and do everything from arranging river tours, picking up garbage, and delivering ice and fruit. Upon the recommendation of Solitaire we hooked up with Alexis. Once you have a guide, the other guides leave you alone. There are secondary boat boys who paddle on windsurfers and offer to take your garbage. This is okay in the boat boy system, so on the first evening, we handed all our garbage to one of the windsurfer boat boys.

Well, if you recall from a few blogs ago, we had gone hiking in Guadeloupe and our runners were filthy. What do our dirty shoes have to do with the friendliness of the islands? Whoa, I am getting there. Turns out we had stowed our runners in a garbage bag and pulled the bag out of storage just before the garbage boy arrived on board. See where I am going? With our other two bags, we handed them four very dirty pairs of runners.

When we woke up at 630am the next morning to embark on our river and island tour, we realized that we did not have any shoes. And today, we needed our shoes to hike to the Spanny Falls in the rainforest. So, when Alexis arrived to take us on the River Tour, we shared our dilemma. Without a word, he motored off and 15 minutes later, returned with four pairs of sparkly clean runners. Turned out the garbage collecting boat boy gave them to another woman and she in turned bleached them and put them on her roof to dry. Alexis had seen the shoes on his way to pick us up and simply went to the house, explained the situation and returned with our shoes.

In an almost third world county, I am sure a couple of pairs of Nikes and Reeboks are worth quite a bit. But the people are honest and the return of our shoes came without incident. We went on the River Tour with Alexis and Junior, who is training to be an official River Guide and then followed this up with an all day tour with Kevin who took us around the island sharing the sites and natural fruits of this very tropical, very lush island. And it came as no surprise the next morning that the garbage collecting boat boy came by and politely requested some cash to pay the woman who washed all our shoes. The payment and tip came easily.

No 'friendly island' license plate; just friendly, honest people. Dominica will go down in my mind as one of the friendliest places we have been.

(Stay tuned for "On the Hunt for a Wild Apricot Tree" by Connor and pictures to be posted.)